Organizers on the Alaskan side of the Yukon Quest are breathing a little easier after Fairbanks city council awarded the dog mushing race $10,000 on Monday.

The money came after the Yukon Quest was denied $20,000 from the city's hotel-motel bed tax last week because they were late submitting the application.

"We are really grateful that the city council awarded $10,000," said Tania Simpson, Alaskan executive director for the Yukon Quest. "It's certainly not what we had budgeted for or hoped for, but we are grateful to have that amount."

The Quest's late submission came as a result of some confusion with this year's application process.

The confusion occurred after discussion arose this past summer about certain groups that have received the fund for a long period of time being perpetually incorporated into its structure and exempt from having to apply on an annual basis.

This idea didn't end up being accepted, but the decision wasn't communicated back to the Yukon Quest in time for the Fairbanks office to apply by the Oct. 31 deadline.

The bed tax grant is designed to be allocated to organizations and events that bring in tourism and that have positive economic impacts on the business community. Simpson said the Yukon Quest in Fairbanks has been a recipient of the grant for a number of years.

"We had hoped for $20,000 this year from that fund, so we are now going to be regrouping and looking at alternative revenue generating measures to try to make up for that short-fall," she said.

"That will be through fund-raising initiatives as well as making an appeal to the community to both individual donors as well as corporations."

She said she is hopeful about being able to make up the remaining money.

"We have certainly received a tremendous amount of support from the community, people calling in saying they do support the Yukon Quest," Simpson said.

"They want to be able to help out in some manner, so we are starting to see donations and hopefully that will continue."

There is a separate fund devoted to trail maintenance, so Quest mushers have nothing to worry about heading into the race. The money given by Fairbanks city council will be spent on the Alaskan side of the Yukon Quest.

Simpson said with 40 mushers registered in total, this is going to be an exciting year for the Yukon Quest.

"We have a great field, so I think we are all looking forward to the start in Whitehorse in February."

The deadline for regular registration closed this past Friday. Teams can still sign up until Jan. 9, however an additional fee for late registration will apply.

This year the Yukon Quest has employed the services of John Schandelmeier, who will be the Alaskan trail co-ordinator.

"We are very excited when we recognize the need to engage somebody with expertise on the trail in Alaska and we were fortunate enough to contract John Schandelmeier to be our Alaska trail co-ordinator," said Stephen Reynolds, the Quest's Yukon executive director.

"One of the things that we anticipated helping us with was re-assuring the mushers that we did take the trails seriously and that we would be putting in place as good of trail as possible given the weather conditions of this winter."

Forty mushers have registered to compete in the main race, while the Yukon Quest 300 has the maximum 25 and a waiting list.

The Yukon Quest runs between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, alternating the start and finish lines every year.